


Around the Clock

by amitee (orphan_account)



Category: Farscape, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/F, Spaceships, implied threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-28 21:05:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/amitee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-four linked drabbles, not necessarily in order. Elizabeth, Aeryn, and sometimes John. What they have, and what they've left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Around the Clock

1\. (beginning)

In the beginning, there was space.

Space, and Aeryn Sun.

Aeryn with her low moans and her face-framing wisps of hair, somehow managing to be dark gold and moon pale at the same time. Elizabeth had never loved a woman before discovering the slick heat between Aeryn’s thighs. Time, touch, taste, scent, sight, sound – they were all different now.

Out here the stars gleamed in ways she’d never thought possible, each one a new start, each one a new gun sounding. Out here, Aeryn was her origin and extinction, her alpha and omega, and Elizabeth had never felt as free.

 

2\. (prehistoric)

She has no more history. Everything is wiped clean, a blank slate, a shining mirror. Elizabeth turns the arrowhead in her hands. It’s the last thing she has from before and it’s not even from her world. She passes it to Aeryn, who understands war, and Aeryn passes it to Crichton, who understands wormholes.

She can’t call him John, not yet. She’s not sure she’ll ever be able to.

Aeryn curls close around her, humming softly, and Elizabeth sets the arrowhead aside, thinking. There is no one to chronicle them here, no one to catalog her artifacts from distant galaxies.

 

3\. (anniversary)

She takes an hour once a week to sit in silent contemplation of those she'd been separated from. It had been Zhaan's suggestion, soon after she'd arrived, when not even talking about Earth with Crichton had eased her confusion.

Sometimes she spends the hour alone, sometimes with Zhaan in meditation (it reminds her of time spent with Teyla; the sadness pulls at her heart but it's lessening) and sometimes with Aeryn's arms around her, perfectly still.

Today, when she's done, she turns in Aeryn's embrace and kisses her temple. "Thank you."

"Is it getting better?"

Elizabeth nods. "Yes."

"I'm glad."

 

4\. (generational)

“Creation is beautiful, isn’t it?” Aeryn breathes in her ear, tightening her arms around Elizabeth’s waist and stroking her fingertips over Elizabeth’s stomach, and Elizabeth has to agree.

“Hey, ladies, we can only stay another fifteen seconds before we blow up with it,” Crichton calls. “So let’s starburst out of here, okay?”

“It’s not every day we get to see a star being born,” Elizabeth slides her fingers through Aeryn’s and squeezes. Finally she’s starting to learn the things Aeryn considers beautiful.

Crichton waits until Aeryn gives the go-ahead. Then the starburst takes them, away from the quickening cosmic events.

 

5\. (insomnia)

Late nights were how it started. Wandering Moya’s halls, as strange as Atlantis’ had been at first, trying to clear her mind and tire her muscles enough to sleep. It never seemed to work, and she’d find herself just going in circles.

Aeryn had come up behind her one of those long nights, caught her wrist, stroked a slow thumb over Elizabeth’s inner forearm. “Pacing doesn’t help,” she’d said. “Fight or get laid." She’d turned a little; Elizabeth had ended up with her back against the faintly warm wall as Aeryn smiled, looking dangerous and inviting at the same time.

 

6\. (contemporary)

The buildings on this planet were sleek and high, that silver shimmer of glass and steel – or what passed for glass and steel here – and Elizabeth saw Aeryn shield her eyes. She looked at Crichton and he grinned. “Looks almost familiar, doesn’t it,” he said.

“Except for the personal spacecraft.” But even that she wasn’t surprised by anymore. At least here the landscape seemed to go with the level of technology. “Glad for the solid ground, though.” Aeryn wrinkled her nose, and Elizabeth laughed. “Sometimes I forget you practically grew up in space,” she said, softer, and took Aeryn’s hand.

 

7\. (dawn)

Daybreak was pink and rapidly growing gold, edged with an orange that reflected with hot intensity off the tall buildings. In their rented room, Elizabeth turned in the muddle of blankets and nuzzled against Aeryn, who was trying and failing to shut out the new light and mumbling something about sleeping longer. Elizabeth pressed against her, seeking, heat rising that didn’t have anything to with the sun. “Open your eyes and touch me, Aeryn, because I want to see you in this sunlight, real light,” she demanded, and smiled in satisfaction as Aeryn’s hands came up to circle her wrists.

 

8\. (awakened)

Elizabeth looked down at Aeryn’s hand on her arm, then back up into those wide blue eyes that could be innocent one moment and furious the next. Long-slumbering heat stirred in her belly, and she let her head fall back. Aeryn smiled again, moved closer, raised her other hand to trace the curve of Elizabeth’s ear slowly, almost like she was waiting for something.

“Kiss me,” Elizabeth breathed, and Aeryn’s mouth was on hers before she could draw in the next breath. Possessive hands slid over her hips, held her against the wall, and Aeryn’s knee moved between her knees.

 

9\. (heyday)

The Leviathan gave a spectacular shudder coming out of starburst and Elizabeth slid across the command floor, ending up tangled with both Aeryn and Crichton against the wall. “I’ll never get used to that,” Crichton groaned, and helped them both up with warm hands.

“For a long time, even out here, everywhere I looked there were reminders of my old life,” Aeryn said later. “I understand if-”

Elizabeth shook her head, pulling Aeryn close, her arms tight around Aeryn’s waist, kissing her softly underneath her ear. “Don’t even think it. I can’t even call him by his first name yet.”

 

10\. (planned)

“Meet me on the terrace in two arns,” Aeryn says to her, and hurries after D’Argo.

Now, arms come around her waist as she looks out at the stars and lips press firmly against her neck. Elizabeth sighs and leans back. “Of all the things to get used to, this one is still eluding me.” She swings her arm in a wide arc as she says it, indicating the wide expanse of space.

“I know,” Aeryn whispers in her ear. “I think I can help with that.”

“How?”

Hands sweep through her hair. “Take your clothes off.”

“Out here?”

“Yes.”

 

11\. (wristwatch)

After her first time with Aeryn, Elizabeth takes off her watch and gives it to Rygel. He clutches it to his body and looks at her a little wide-eyed. Elizabeth laughs. “Earth time doesn’t mean anything here,” she tells him, but she knows he’s really only thinking about the fact that it’s a one-of-a-kind piece.

Later, Aeryn presses a soft kiss to her now-bare wrist and Elizabeth knows she’s noticed. “I didn’t need it anymore,” she says, slowly sliding her hand up Aeryn’s thigh. Aeryn nuzzles her and smiles, her skin smooth beneath Elizabeth’s palm.

 

12\. (punctual)

Aeryn’s prowler lands exactly on time and Elizabeth sighs in relief, her nervousness fading. Crichton bumps her shoulder. “Told you.”

“It was a John Crichton plan,” she says dryly as Aeryn climbs out of the prowler.

“Oh, you wound me!” he calls. Elizabeth heads for Aeryn, flashing Crichton a grin over her shoulder.

Aeryn jumps down and kisses her firmly. Elizabeth slides her hands into Aeryn’s hair, loosening her ponytail, all too aware of Crichton watching them. “You gave him a hard time when I was gone, then?” Aeryn asks.

Elizabeth smiles and rubs her cheek against Aeryn’s. “Of course.”

 

13\. (lunchtime)

The food cubes are a little strange at first. “Be honest,” Elizabeth says to Crichton. “Don’t these remind you of that freeze-dried NASA food?”

He laughs. “It was never this bad.”

Elizabeth and Aeryn go through their daily ritual of swapping red for green in comfortable silence. Elizabeth pushes the odd purple cube over to Crichton, who says thanks, pops it in his mouth, and heads out to find D’Argo.

“You still can’t call him John, can you?” Aeryn asks after a while and Elizabeth shakes her head. “Tell me about your John,” Aeryn says, softer. “If you want to.”

“He was a lot smarter than he let on,” Elizabeth replies, looking down at her hands. “He was one of those soldiers who’d give his soul to a war if it was asked of him, but he’d be more happy with peace.” She pauses briefly, swallowing hard. “He’d love Moya, Aeryn. Sometimes being on the ship physically hurts, because I know John Sheppard would give almost anything to be on a living ship like this; to fly something like this.”

She stops, realizing there’s tears running down her face, and Aeryn smoothes them away with her thumbs and a kiss.

 

14\. (instantaneous)

There are people firing, off in the distance for now, but coming closer. Aeryn’s hand closes tight around her wrist as they run for the pod, towards escape. Elizabeth is still not used to going along on missions, but with only six of them she can’t always be the one to stay behind.

They stumble in rather ungracefully and Crichton lifts off before the hatch is even closed completely. The suddenness of it knocks Elizabeth hard into her seat. “Is that considered a close call?” she asks.

“Nope,” Crichton replies, and Aeryn grins. Elizabeth holds her hand a little tighter.

 

15\. (season)

There were leaves falling from the trees and the air smelled just like Elizabeth remembered it, from a childhood that felt so long ago. Except this wasn’t Earth, those weren’t maple trees, and there was only one other person in this whole corner of the universe who knew what Halloween was.

Ahead of her, Zhaan and Aeryn were standing at a vendor’s table, haggling over the price of food cubes while Rygel hovered indifferently. Elizabeth paused for a moment, watching them, still wondering how she’d ended up _here_. Then Aeryn looked up at her and there were golden leaves in her hair, and Elizabeth would have dragged her back to their tent if it wasn’t only two in the afternoon.

 

16\. (unpredictable)

“You know, I almost like not knowing where we’re going from day to day,” Crichton announces. Elizabeth and Aeryn both stare at him.

“No, you don’t,” Aeryn informs him. “In fact, you almost hate it.”

“You complain constantly,” Elizabeth adds, managing to keep a straight face.

Crichton shrugs. “It’s always something different.”

“You mean someone different is always shooting at us,” Elizabeth corrects.

He makes an expansive gesture. “A whole ship just for the six of us, two good-looking women who have stopped being afraid to kiss where I might see them, a guy twice my size who’s always got my back during said shooting… what’s wrong with all that?”

“Possibility of death?” Aeryn asks, but even she can’t stop the corner of her mouth from twitching into a smile. “Go bother someone else, John, before possibility of death applies to all those things you listed, instead of just some of them.”

Grumbling, Crichton leaves, and Elizabeth buries her face in Aeryn’s neck and laughs.

 

17\. (evolution)

She knows about Aeryn and John’s occasional moments of mutual attraction, so she’s not very surprised when John sits down next to her one day and asks, calm, like he’s trying to sound casual. Elizabeth’s not worried about her bond with Aeryn; she’s aware of what it can take and what it can’t. “John, if you and Aeryn want to sleep together, you can,” she says. And then adds, surprising herself, “But I get to watch.”

John blinks at her. “You weren’t paying attention to what I was asking, were you? I want to sleep with _you_. Well, and Aeryn, too.” He gestures expansively. “A whole confusing tangle of limbs.”

Elizabeth smiles and thinks to herself that three is only on the edge of being a tangle, and not that confusing at all. John gets up to go, saying he’ll leave her alone.

“John.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll get back to you. On that question.”

He nods. “Right,” he says, and leaves.

 

18\. (finite)

“Sometimes I think he enjoys his Earth references too much,” Aeryn says, kissing down Elizabeth’s neck and unbuttoning her shirt at the same time.

“Can we not talk about John right now?” Elizabeth pants, rocking against Aeryn’s thigh between her thighs. She shrugs her shoulders and the shirt slips down, only to get caught by still-buttoned cuffs at her wrists. Aeryn grabs, tugs, and buttons bounce over the floor. “My shirt,” Elizabeth says, half-mournfully, and Aeryn laughs as she captures Elizabeth’s nipple in her mouth. Elizabeth moans, thrusts her hands into Aeryn’s hair, and pulls her down onto the bed.

 

19\. (afterlife)

“Sometimes I wonder if they’re out there, waiting for me,” she whispers to Aeryn in the cool of their gauzy tent. “If when I die, I’ll see them all again.”

“Hush,” Aeryn whispers back. “You don’t know for certain who has passed into the beyond. And you don’t know that we’ll never find one of your Stargates. After all, we keep finding John’s wormholes.”

“They never turn out quite right, do they?” Elizabeth sighs. She wipes at her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Aeryn shakes her head. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” she says, and opens her arms. Elizabeth slides closer, melting against Aeryn’s warmth.

 

20\. (outdated)

“This is all old tech,” Aeryn says, looking doubtfully at the pile of weapons and machine parts in front of them.

“Honey, according to you, I’m old tech,” John tells her. Elizabeth covers her mouth to hide her smile. “Hurry up, let’s get a move on.”

They load up, and between the three of them, everything gets on board. Rygel gives the heap the same doubtful look that Aeryn had. “Save it, Sparky,” John warns him.

Elizabeth bends down and picks up a small burnished piece of metal, the surface worn smooth. There’s a history to it, she’s sure, but out here there’s no time to find out. It’s one of the things she misses the most – hours spent with a dusty stack of books full of the half-forgotten past, or a tablet of scrolling Ancient text revealing something that’s even more distant.

Aeryn kneels next to her, puts a hand on her knee. “Did you find something worth what we paid for all this?”

“Probably not,” Elizabeth chuckles, and sets the scrap back down.

 

21\. (twilight)

Both suns have dropped below the horizon, and the fog has settled in again as Aeryn guides the pod up off the ground and out into space. As the stars rush to meet them, Elizabeth says, “John spoke to me while I was waiting for you to come back with those spare parts on Nedolla.”

“I know,” Aeryn says softly. “He as much as told me he was going to.”

“Do you have an answer for him? Because I don’t.”

Aeryn meets her eyes, her face serene. “Only you can answer his question, Elizabeth,” she replies.

“I love you,” Elizabeth says, hating the little bit of helplessness in her voice.

Aeryn smiles at her, full and shining. “And I you.”

 

22\. (mourned)

“There was a girl out here he was in love with, a Peacekeeper tech,” Aeryn says softly, tracing patterns over Elizabeth’s bare shoulder. “But she died and John…” Her hands still for a moment, resting. “He was different for a while.”

Elizabeth turns and slides her arms around Aeryn’s waist, lays her head on Aeryn’s thighs. “Sudden death will do that to a person,” she says, because she doesn’t know what else to say, and Aeryn leans over to bury her face in Elizabeth’s hair.

She sits up straight again a moment later in an unexpected motion. “Did you leave someone behind?” she asks, hesitation and concern shading her voice.

Elizabeth reaches for her. “No.”

 

23\. (heartbeat)

Elizabeth lets her mind go, focusing on each breath, glad for Aeryn’s warm hands on her thighs, grounding her. “I think I’m starting to miss them less,” she murmurs, but even as she says it, she can picture John and Rodney and Teyla as they’d been the last time she’d seen them, right before she’d walked through the Stargate - aiming for some trade discussions and touching down up in another time and place – and her eyes fill with tears.

“All things fade, but only if you don’t hold on to them tightly,” Aeryn replies quietly, her breath light on Elizabeth’s neck. “It’s up to you how much you want to let go of.”

She’s not ready yet to let it all move into the past. She grips Aeryn’s hands, steadying herself. “I’m still working on it,” she says, and that’s all she can do.

 

24\. (endless)

In the beginning, there was space. And Elizabeth was sure that in the end, the never-ending stretch of time would be there still. But for now, she exists on a living ship, surrounded by friends and lovers, each day flowing into the next, taking each arn a microt at a time, giving thanks for every breath she draws. This is her history now.

The stars still gleam, still amaze her just as they always have. Once, a long time ago, she’d thought she would never go into space. That her feet would always touch the ground.

Little did she know.


End file.
